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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

"Real" 2:1 - editor needs help

joshua csehak said:
You mean 16:9 is the Golden Ratio, right? The wiki says it's 1.618ish, which would be a frame size of say, 1618 x 1000, which would be something like 16x9.9. Which is closeish to 16x9. I wonder why they decided on 16x9, anyways?
Click to expand...

Nope 2:1 is the golden ratio. Read the Storario article.

Given a choice I like 4x3 or 2:1. 16x9 gives more pixels and uses more of the sesnors resolution so ou can always crop 16x9 to 2:1 by loosing the top and bottom of a 16x9 frame.

16x9 is a strange (tv friendly) ratio.

David
 
You're being a bit facetious -- the famous Golden Ratio of art is around 1.618 : 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_golden_ratio

2:1 is sort of a blend or averaging of different cinema ratios. Of course, it also sounds very neat and classical mathematically...

It's funny how people are already calling 1.77 : 1 (16x9) a "TV-looking ratio" when a few years ago, they would have said 1.33 : 1 (4x3).

The whole range of widescreen shapes in cinema started in the 1950's after Cinerama (2.66 : 1) was a hit, followed by CinemaScope. CinemaScope was originally going to be 2.66 : 1 as well (2X anamorphic lens on a 1.33 4-perf 35mm Full Aperture gate) because the sound was going to be run in interlock on a separate mag roll, ala Cinerama, but when they opted for magnetic stripes and smaller "CS" perfs on the 35mm print stock, it become 2.55 : 1 and then 2.35 : 1 when they went to an optical track on the print. Now it's closer to 2.40 : 1.

But the widescreen craze led the studios to recommend cropping their 1.37 Academy movies further top & bottom in the projector to cheaply create a widescreen image. Paramount wanted to use the least amount of cropping for image quality reasons and proposed 1.66; Universal wanted the most amount of cropping and proposed 1.85; and Disney proposed 1.75, which is very close to 16x9 (1.77). By the mid 1960's, 1.85 had become more or less a defacto standard for Hollywood studio movies (though Disney kept pushing a 1.75 standard) while in Europe, 1.66 was more popular.

Personally, anyone who has a 16x9 HDTV set and sees how little letterboxing is needed to create a 1.85 image... well, I'm hard-pressed how one could call 1.85 "cinematic" and 1.78 "TV-ish" (and then come back around to calling 1.66 "cinematic" again, I guess). If you just showed people a drawing of a 1.78 rectangle and a 1.85 rectangle, most people would think they were the same shape. But then, I have the same problem with people condemning 1.33 as a TV-ish format when so many classic movies are either 1.33 or 1.37.

Besides, if Storaro and others had their way, TV sets and movies would share the same 2:1 format, so wouldn't that make 2:1 seem "TV-ish"??? It's a bit of the notion that familiarity breeds contempt, if TV is using it, it must not be good.

2:1 is a lovely shape, don't get me wrong, and I'm not necessarily opposed theoretically to reducing the differences in aspect ratios down to two if not one, but in practice, people like options, they like being different, they like going against the tide or against the crowd, etc. so as soon as you reduce it to one, someone will create an alternate shape.

But I think that 1.78 and 1.85 are SO close that it's a bit silly to have that difference, at least we could combine them. I'd even be fine with 1.78 being the standard instead of 1.85, just to create a mildly greater difference between that and 2.40. When CinemaScope first was released, most 35mm movies were 1.37 Academy. Kurosawa, for example, made the leap from 1.37 to 2.35 when he did "Hidden Fortress" -- I kind of like the extreme difference. I sort of feel that movies today should probably be more like 1.66 and 2.40 so the difference is obvious and dramatic. The trouble with 1.85 versus 2.40 is that half the viewers can't recall which format they just saw.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
You're being a bit facetious -- the famous Golden Ratio of art is around 1.618 : 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_golden_ratio

I sort of feel that movies today should probably be more like 1.66 and 2.40 so the difference is obvious and dramatic. The trouble with 1.85 versus 2.40 is that half the viewers can't recall which format they just saw.
Click to expand...

I agree with this wholeheartedly - and not just because 1.66 is so dear to my heart...
 
David Mullen ASC said:
You're being a bit facetious -- the famous Golden Ratio of art is around 1.618 : 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_golden_ratio
Click to expand...

agreed. I Was indeed confusing it with what I believed and what it is. I'm not afraid to admit the mistake. I think 2:1 is a very pleasant ratio. I did not include 4x3 as aTV ratio because of all of the great films shot in this ratio, including recent films like, "Eyes Wide Shut".

Thanks for the detailed response.

You're very smart.

David
 
Holy crap, I wonder who has more information -- David Mullen or the internet? Fascinating.

I definitely think there should be 3 options: 4x3, widescreen, and really-widescreen. If WS is 16x9 or 1.85:1 or whatever, and RWS is 2.4:1 or 2.35:1 or whatever, doesn't really make much of a difference aesthetically.

I agree that audiences (myself included) don't notice the format, but I'm sure you'll agree that RWS feels a little more "cinematic" than WS, and much more than 4x3, so it's more appropriate for grand sweeping vistas and whatnot. And 4x3 and WS are more appropriate for comedies and intimate stories. Not that you couldn't do grand sweeping vistas with WS or 4x3, of course.

Personally, I much prefer composing for 4x3 or WS. RWS is too limiting. But who knows, maybe that'll change when I start shooting grand sweeping vistas.

Of course, if you're authoring for the web, you can do whatever you want. 8.35:1 could be interesting, if the story fit it. Or a circle, or a keyhole. But probably too gimmicky to give any credence to.
 
For fun I tried to capture all these aspect ratios while at the recent Rose Parade... http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=39365 :biggrinjester:

David Mullen ASC said:
You're being a bit facetious -- the famous Golden Ratio of art is around 1.618 : 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_golden_ratio

2:1 is sort of a blend or averaging of different cinema ratios. Of course, it also sounds very neat and classical mathematically...

It's funny how people are already calling 1.77 : 1 (16x9) a "TV-looking ratio" when a few years ago, they would have said 1.33 : 1 (4x3).

The whole range of widescreen shapes in cinema started in the 1950's after Cinerama (2.66 : 1) was a hit, followed by CinemaScope. CinemaScope was originally going to be 2.66 : 1 as well (2X anamorphic lens on a 1.33 4-perf 35mm Full Aperture gate) because the sound was going to be run in interlock on a separate mag roll, ala Cinerama, but when they opted for magnetic stripes and smaller "CS" perfs on the 35mm print stock, it become 2.55 : 1 and then 2.35 : 1 when they went to an optical track on the print. Now it's closer to 2.40 : 1.

But the widescreen craze led the studios to recommend cropping their 1.37 Academy movies further top & bottom in the projector to cheaply create a widescreen image. Paramount wanted to use the least amount of cropping for image quality reasons and proposed 1.66; Universal wanted the most amount of cropping and proposed 1.85; and Disney proposed 1.75, which is very close to 16x9 (1.77). By the mid 1960's, 1.85 had become more or less a defacto standard for Hollywood studio movies (though Disney kept pushing a 1.75 standard) while in Europe, 1.66 was more popular.

Personally, anyone who has a 16x9 HDTV set and sees how little letterboxing is needed to create a 1.85 image... well, I'm hard-pressed how one could call 1.85 "cinematic" and 1.78 "TV-ish" (and then come back around to calling 1.66 "cinematic" again, I guess). If you just showed people a drawing of a 1.78 rectangle and a 1.85 rectangle, most people would think they were the same shape. But then, I have the same problem with people condemning 1.33 as a TV-ish format when so many classic movies are either 1.33 or 1.37.

Besides, if Storaro and others had their way, TV sets and movies would share the same 2:1 format, so wouldn't that make 2:1 seem "TV-ish"??? It's a bit of the notion that familiarity breeds contempt, if TV is using it, it must not be good.

2:1 is a lovely shape, don't get me wrong, and I'm not necessarily opposed theoretically to reducing the differences in aspect ratios down to two if not one, but in practice, people like options, they like being different, they like going against the tide or against the crowd, etc. so as soon as you reduce it to one, someone will create an alternate shape.

But I think that 1.78 and 1.85 are SO close that it's a bit silly to have that difference, at least we could combine them. I'd even be fine with 1.78 being the standard instead of 1.85, just to create a mildly greater difference between that and 2.40. When CinemaScope first was released, most 35mm movies were 1.37 Academy. Kurosawa, for example, made the leap from 1.37 to 2.35 when he did "Hidden Fortress" -- I kind of like the extreme difference. I sort of feel that movies today should probably be more like 1.66 and 2.40 so the difference is obvious and dramatic. The trouble with 1.85 versus 2.40 is that half the viewers can't recall which format they just saw.
Click to expand...
 
Hi David n all just got back from a shoot in 12 to 1 aspect ratio. Part shot using three red ones mounted together to make a 10' by 120' projection. It's for digital projection so I guess this will be a TV look? On the other hand there will be theatre seating and an expensive ticket.... the true hallmarks of Cinema....
 
12:1 is pretty insane. Widest project I've worked on was about 6:1 for Watchout! playout, and even then we only shot HD as it was all comps into a virtual environment.

Very hard to compare how things look/feel when projected on that wide a screen, as generally the whole screen won't be in your field of view at the same time.
 
Sounds like someone needs a 28K Epic!
 
actually 1.89??

actually 1.89??

I need to do more research on this, but my colorist at Final Frame Post in NYC is saying that Red's 2:1 is actually 1.89:1. Considering the camera allegedly shoots square pixels and the image is 4096x2048, I'm not sure how that works out... anyone else heard this before?
 
hmm, maybe if you take the monitors overscan in consideration :)

if 4096x2048, 3072x1536 or 2048x1024 isn't 2:1 then what is?
Maybe he is treating the Red-image as non-square-pixel stuff... you know like in PAL you have a digital image of 768x576 but you squese it into 720x576 so that the CRT-monitors non-square-pixels will stretch it out to correct aspect again...

Beats me, but would be VERY interesting to get a comment from the one that said it, and an explenation how it can NOT be 2:1
 
David Battistella said:
agreed. I Was indeed confusing it with what I believed and what it is. I'm not afraid to admit the mistake. I think 2:1 is a very pleasant ratio. I did not include 4x3 as aTV ratio because of all of the great films shot in this ratio, including recent films like, "Eyes Wide Shut".

Thanks for the detailed response.

You're very smart.

David
Click to expand...

But... 4:3 works well for a very small screen - there is not enough resolution/space to put lots of action/context behind a character. With a larger screen, you want to use that room, and you can. As such, 16:9 makes sense for larger and higher resolution TVs and cinema screens, whereas 4;3 made more sense with low-res, tiny screens running VHS tapes - the only space you really had was just enough to properly show an actor in close-up. A panorama of background action behind them, on an SD 20 inch screen, would just be a pixelated mess, it woudl just be noise, so you can't use the background possibility of a wider format anyway. Mow in HD (and of course in projected film) that space to the left and/or right of character heads can be used to great effect.

The 4:3 ratio, by the way, was determined by the standard shape of burlesque theatres that were converted in large numbers to become most of the first cinemas. These stages were standardised to facilitate the quick accomodation of travelling acts and their sets.
 
I'm not sure if that's true since the 4x3 35mm movie format was invented before regular theaters were being used to show them -- Edison, after all, wanted them shown in a Kinetascope, the Lumieres went around and set-up screens to project the footage in traveling shows, etc. But maybe it's true, but I suspect other reasons for the 4x3 shape. With such a small piece of film, Edison / Dickson perhaps didn't want to get too far from a perfect square to get as much resolution from the format (since the lens creates a circular image) but a perfect square is too boring to compose in, so they went with 4x3. Anyway, I'd love to see some historical citations that the 4x3 shape was based on theater stage space.
 
Am I the only one who would be thrilled to do a "Perfect square" format picture?

In my still photography days I cropped to 1:1 all the time - I think one can do some very interesting compositions within a square.
 
Isn't 4x3 actually 4.0987675498746353 X 2.9990874653647388?

:)
David
 
interesting, but not true

interesting, but not true

C_Skaff said:
hmm, maybe if you take the monitors overscan in consideration :)

if 4096x2048, 3072x1536 or 2048x1024 isn't 2:1 then what is?

Beats me, but would be VERY interesting to get a comment from the one that said it, and an explenation how it can NOT be 2:1
Click to expand...

Indeed it is 2:1. not 1.89:1. go figure. He might have been talking about red's 1.85's guides in 2:1 or 16:9? not sure.
 
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